So this week was perfect for a Maker Mat - Christmas/Holiday style! As my students are very familiar with these, I like to change up some of the constraints and resources to keep them fresh and exciting. For this Maker Mat, I introduced students to Plus Plus blocks. Much like when I introduced the Pix Brix, there was a bit of a learning curve despite the simplicity of the building tool. I knew it would be easy for students to build creations that were flat and pretty much two dimensional. So, as part of their Maker Mat building with the Plus Plus, they had to build three dimensional objects. This proved to be more difficult than I anticipated! Students would build a flat object and had a hard time giving it dimension. We talked about how the pieces can be manipulated in different ways to build their flat object into something that can stand on its own and can be viewed from different angles. It is great when I saw the ah-ha moments after a period of struggle!